Ashley Newbrough on Living the Privileged Life

Ashley Newbrough on Living the Privileged Life

As Sage Baker on the CW's Privileged, Ashley Newbrough plays a snarky ice queen with a good heart buried somewhere deep inside. On tonight's episode, titled "All About Confessions," many of the characters reveal something major they've been hiding - and Sage's secret is one of the biggest of all. Earlier this week, Newbrough hopped on the phone with some reporters to chat about playing Sage, working on Privileged, and getting comfortable with her TV twin. Here are highlights:

* On Sage's big confession: "Sage reveals this secret, the secret that will explain why she's so guarded, and it's a pretty heavy deal, it's something she's been carrying her entire life - well, since she was 6, since her parents died. She's been carrying this secret for so long, and it's the first time she lets it off her shoulders and says it out loud, really. And I think it's good because it lets the audience in on her darkest secret, so it kind of shows you what really damaged her. You get to see the softer side of Sage. She's very, very vulnerable, which is something that never happens."

* On how having a love interest has changed Sage: "It's forced her to sort of be a little bit more sensitive and sort of watch what she says a little bit more . . . especially when it's Luis, because he doesn't put up with her crap, and he doesn't back down from any of her mean remarks or anything like that. It's definitely made her reevaluate what she says and how she treats people. . . Just kind of dealing with the feelings of having a crush on someone has just made her grow up a little bit and accept the fact that she's going to let him in and be a little bit vulnerable with him, which are all things that she's never experienced before, because as she says, she's never liked someone this much."

* On what attracted her to playing Sage: "I felt like you could tell she was damaged, and underneath all that ice and meanness she was a good person somewhere. Being only 16 and having lost her parents when she was 6, I think that all forced her to grow up really fast and sort of made her different than all the other regular mean girls on television shows or in life, because I think she has all these reasons for why she is so mean and guarded and why she hates letting people in so much. . . I also liked how she was so protective of her sister. She can be mean to everyone in the world but as long as Rose is happy, she didn't care."